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Friends Album: Photos 3 & 4

I have acquired an old photo album containing many pictures from the late 1800s. I’m going through the album to catalog the photos with as much information as can be gleaned from them. My hope is to return the album and photos to the descendants of those pictured. Read about the first photos in the album here. **Click on the images below for larger versions**

The next page of the Friends Album features two photos by two different photographers in Yonkers, New York. Here is the first:

Friend No. 3

Is it me, or is the child above standing on one foot? I believe she is a girl, despite the cropped hair, because of the bustle on the dress — I’ve seen boys from this era in dresses before, but not with bustles. Below is the reverse side of the photo.

Reverse side of Friend No. 3's photo

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of info to help identify the child pictured. My interpretation of the handwriting in pencil is “16 x 20 Burt Reed.” Perhaps that was the person who commissioned the photo? This time, however, I had more luck finding the photographer. Here he is in the 1880 U.S. Census (via Ancestry):

Photographer Byron Barker in the 1880 U.S. Census (Ancestry)

Byron Barker also can be found in a Yonkers city directory in 1886-87 (though at a different address than listed in the photographer’s imprint on the photo above):

1886-87 Yonkers city directory listing (Ancestry.com)

He does appear at the address in the photographer’s imprint in an 1892 directory, also found on Ancestry. Bingo! That helps to date the photo (at least to post-1887). I’m unable to find other evidence of this photographer past 1892.

Here’s the next photo in the album:

Friend No. 4

And the reverse side of the above photo:

Once again, the 1880 U.S. Census shows us more about this photographer:

Paul Lisbona also is listed as a photographer in Yonkers in the 1910 census. In 1870, according to the US Census on FamilySearch.org, a Pablo Lisbona is in school in Columbia, New York. I’m relatively sure he’s our guy because his birthplace and year match what I saw in the census records.

By the way, if you plug in the street addresses for the Barker studio, as advertised in the imprint of the first photo, and the Lisbona studio address in the second photo into Google Maps, you’ll see they were only 43 feet apart.

Yonkers is in Westchester County, New York. I’m once again noting that fact in case other photos from the album are from the vicinity.